Christmas wouldn’t be the same without its classic festive anthems, including Jona Lewie’s perennial favourite, Stop The Cavalry – but he never expected it to see such huge success
Jona Lewie has to be up there alongside Mariah Carey, Slade and Wham! in terms of owning belting Christmas anthems. His huge hit, Stop The Cavalry, is a perennial favourite, regularly heard on the radio at this time of year, despite being released an incredible 45 years ago.
Yet the star – who’s now 78 years old and lives in London with his partner – never expected the single to be such a huge success, and it wasn’t even intended to be a festive track. “I had no inkling it would become a Christmas classic. Its release coincided with the tragic death of John Lennon – he was shot on the day Stop The Cavalry came out,” he told the Daily Express back in 2015.
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“The following week, two of his tracks held the top two spots and my record was third,” Jona continued. “It’s wonderful to have a single that ranks alongside White Christmas and Slade’s Merry Xmas Everybody, getting airplay every December. Sometimes I hear it in a shop and I think, ‘Blimey, that’s me!”
In fact, it turns out the single was only released at Christmas because of one line in the song. Jona recently told the Daily Mail: “It featured the line ‘wish I was at home for Christmas’ so the record company released it in early December.”
However, Jona went on to explain his frustration with the single after it was released. “I spent the 80s and 90s trying to move past my success with that song. It sold around three or four million copies, so I never had to find regular employment! I’ve kept myself occupied, though.”
He can’t stay too frustrated though, considering the money the track brings him each year – it’s estimated to earn around £120,000 in royalties every year, and could be raking in considerably more this year as it’s famously featured in the Christmas advert for supermarket chain Morrisons.
Jona told the Guardian that Stop The Cavalry actually makes up around half of his personal income, saying: ““50% of my real income. The thing is, I do everything on the track. I write the lyrics and the melody, so that’s all of the publishing.
“And because I’m a musician I can do all the backing track, so that’s all the recording royalty. I was a one-man show. And if you can get a track associated with Christmas, you get annual regurgitation, and potential for earning every year.”
Yet Stop The Cavalry nearly didn’t happen at all – as Jona was nearly cast out in the cold before his first big hit. “I was on the verge of being dropped from Stiff [Records] until my 1980 hit You’ll Always Find Me In The Kitchen At Parties solidified my place,” he explained. “It shifted about 200,000 copies and climbed to number 16. The lyrics resonated with people. It was fantastic to be back on Top Of The Pops after an eight-year hiatus. The idea of being a pop star was somewhat daunting, though.”
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